Dreams Can't Hurt You
by Tonya
Summary: Nightmares keep Giles awake. (GilesAnya pairing)


Title: Dreams Can't Hurt You  
  
Author: Tonya (tigerlily1998@hotmail.com)  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Spoilers: Up to and including "Chosen"  
  
Disclaimer: No own, no sue.  
  
Distribution: Just tell me where. Feedback: Hello my name is Tonya and I am a feedbackaholic.  
  
Summary: Nightmares keep Giles awake.  
  
Author's Note: In my world, Anya didn't die. You hear that, Joss!!! SHE DIDN'T DIE!!! *ahem* okay, better now. Move it along, people.  
  
**********  
  
The ground shook violently, and he fought to keep his balance.  
  
They needed to get out. Before the floor opened below them, and "from beneath you, it devours" became an even more literal state.  
  
"Wood!" he called out as the earth rumbled again.  
  
They had become separated during the chaos, during the attack. He called out a second time, not even sure his voice could be heard over the crashing of beams, the tumbling of walls. He didn't want to leave anyone behind, not anyone who was alive. In all his years on the Hellmouth, they had never abandoned one of their own. But today, it appeared they would have to make the exception. That today would have to be every man for himself.  
  
He called out to Wood one more time to ease his own feeling of guilt. Behind him, a beam collapsed, kicking up a cloud of dust and plaster as it did so. The quake it made on contact with the floor finally threw him off balance, and he fell to his knees as the lights in the hallway flickered and then extinguished. He coughed hard, gasping for air.  
  
The last thing he remembered as he knelt in the grime was the feeling of the concrete opening up beneath him.  
  
**********  
  
Giles awoke with a start, gasping for air. He sat up quickly, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of his bedroom. He could still hear his heart pounding in his ears, even as his body became aware that he had only been dreaming. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Nightmare," he muttered under his breath as he kicked back his sheets. He stood and made his way across the room, grabbing his robe from his chair in the corner. He slipped it on as he made his way out of the room, gently pulling the door closed behind himself.  
  
He made his way down the staircase, each step creaking quietly under his feet. The grandfather clock in the living room signaled that it was two in the morning as Giles unlocked the back door and stepped out onto his patio. A cool breeze passed over him and he cinched his robe tighter at the waist, slipping his hands into the pockets.  
  
Lately the nightmares had been coming less frequently.  
  
When he had first returned home after that event in Sunnydale, the dreams had haunted him every night. The same scenario again and again, and it always ended the same. Darkness. The thought of no escape. The ground opening beneath his body. And then he would wake. Just as the sensation of falling began.  
  
And every night, when he'd be sitting bolt upright in his bed, he'd find himself wondering what would happen if and when he finally hit the bottom in his dream.  
  
Giles inhaled deeply, staring out over the pond, the moon reflecting upon it.  
  
It had been a bit over a year since he had moved back to England, away from Sunnydale and every memory it contained. He had told Buffy a few days after the battle, after things had settled for a bit. She had understood his need to go, as she herself had been feeling the urge. For the first time, since she had been fifteen, she was free to live her life. Live her life as she wanted, by her own rules. Without worrying about how every decision would impact the entire world and every inhabitant of it. So she had decided to travel--she and Dawn. To see what life was really like outside of Sunnydale, California. So when he had told her of his plan to leave again, she had simply smiled, hugged him, and wished him the best.  
  
If she had realized at the time who would be coming back with him, he was sure she would have stared at him as if he had grown a second head.  
  
Anya.  
  
Even though he found it hard to believe himself, he was closest to her than any of the others. Maybe that came from working with her day in and day out at the Magic Box. Maybe it came from the fact that both of them as experts in demonology always seemed to be stuck on the same end of the research detail. Whatever it had been, they had formed some strange bond. A friendship.  
  
Maybe even more on his part.  
  
Being attracted to her had been a surreal experience for him. Finding her stunningly gorgeous, which she was without a doubt, was one thing. But it had been the primal urge to see her beauty in more intimate situations that had frightened him.  
  
Because she was Anya. Xander's Anya.. Or at least until he had shattered her heart and left her dejected at the altar. But even that rationalization waned at times and the guilt returned of being in love with a woman who had once been deeply in love with a boy he had once considered like a son-- a highly annoying and patronizing son-- but a son nonetheless.  
  
And for the longest time, he thought he would never win her heart like Xander had done.  
  
But that had been before the letters had started to arrive. He had received the first one during the first week that he had introduced Willow to the coven. At the very bottom of that letter, she had added in a postscript that she would have called but "those calls aren't cheap, you realize."  
  
They corresponded that way for a while, simple letters to keep each other updated. She would ask what the weather was like there, and he would gladly oblige in telling her. She would tell him how she hoped to one day reopen the Magic Box because it was a shame to see "such a fine establishment of capitalism go to waste", and he would assure her that if she needed any help getting the business restarted, he would be more than happy to help. It seemed that every week, he was replying to a letter. They had become some common at the time that not only could he instantly recognize her penmanship but he could almost predict exactly which day the letters would arrive in his post. But no matter how routine it became, he enjoyed checking his mail and seeing that perfect loopy cursive staring back at him from a long white envelope.  
  
So when she had asked if he could use the company on his final return back home, it didn't shock him as much as it would have if she had asked the same thing a year before.  
  
Because now he knew for a fact that the feelings he had kept hidden about her for such a long time, where actually reciprocal.  
  
"You realize, you pick the most inopportune times to brood?"  
  
Giles turned to the voice and smiled apologetically, looking down at the ground before looking back up at her and replying. "I thought you were asleep."  
  
Anya yawned and wrapped her pink terry robe tighter around her body. Her furry cow slippers ("Cause bunnies are not going anywhere near my feet, mister!") scraped quietly against the wood of the porch as she made her way to him.  
  
She smirked up at him. "You're not exactly stealthy, Giles."  
  
"Apparently not," he replied with a slight chuckle. He watched her for a moment before turning his eyes back across the dark pond in the distance.  
  
"Nightmare?" she finally asked.  
  
He simply nodded.  
  
There was a moment and then, "Did you hit the ground this time?"  
  
He turned to her, an eyebrow raised.  
  
Anya shrugged her slender shoulders. "Well, they say if you hit the ground in your sleep, you die. Your dream self dies so therefore you do as well." She added with a wave of her hand, "It's some philosophical concept and just plain silly if you ask me."  
  
"I know all about the supposed theory, Anya," he replied softly. "And I believe I agree with you full heartedly."  
  
She smiled happily at that and wrapped her robe even tighter around herself as another cool breeze passed through.  
  
Another moment of silence engulfed them before she spoke again.  
  
"I don't like when you have these dreams, Giles. You become very introspective."  
  
Giles chuckled and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Quite honestly, Anya, neither do I." He glanced down at her. "How did you get over yours so easily?"  
  
She returned the glance. "Who says I have?"  
  
"Do you still..?"  
  
She nodded. "Occasionally." She paused with a slight tilt of her head. "I believe it's the nearly dying that my subconscious can't seem to let go of."  
  
Giles smiled despite himself. Even now, after spending so much time with her, her bluntness still had a tendency to amuse him.  
  
"But then when I wake up, I just tell my subconscious to be quiet," she said with a shrug. "Cause I know I'm alive, and I know we all made it. And it's just some human, irrational fear that makes no sense because it's just a dream. And dreams can't hurt you.." She paused, thinking about that. "Unless they're enchanted dreams, in which that case, there is a slight possibility that they *could* in fact hurt you. But very slight."  
  
"And that works for you?"  
  
"Yeah," she replied gently. "Well that and this."  
  
She finally undid the robe, letting it fall open. She lifted the fabric of her navy blue camisole to just under her breasts. Giles' eyes traveled to the dimpled scar on her otherwise unmarred stomach. He watched as her fingers traced the scar that he had kissed on more than one occasion.  
  
She mused quietly as she glanced down at her own stomach. "Kinda makes me remember that it really is all just a dream in the end. That I actually did make it. That I'm lucky to be standing here with my guts on the inside." She smiled up at him as she dropped her shirt and smoothed down the fabric. "Because if there's anything I've learned in my 1200-some-odd years, it's that having my internal organs internalized, is a good thing."  
  
Giles laughed and slipped an arm around her, pulling her to him. Anya hugged him tight around the waist as she laid her head against his chest.  
  
"I'm sure my nightmares will stop eventually," he said. "My subconscious will get tired of tormenting me, I'm sure."  
  
"It's only because your subconscious is just as stubborn as you."  
  
"Says the pot to the kettle," Giles teased.  
  
"I'm not stubborn. I'm just opinionated." She smiled and pulled away from their embrace, tying her robe tight around herself again. "It's freezing out here, Giles. You really should learn to brood in normal temperatures like the rest of the population."  
  
Giles simply watched her with a smirk as she made her way towards the door.  
  
She opened it and turned back to him, waiting. "You're not honestly going to stand out here all night, are you?"  
  
Giles turned his gaze back out to the darkness for a moment before sighing deeply. He turned back to Anya with a smile. He approached her and took her hand in his, lifting and kissing it gently. She gave him a pleased, yet surprised, smile.  
  
"Thank you," he said.  
  
"For what?" she asked. "For keeping you from getting pneumonia?"  
  
"Among other things, yes," he laughed.  
  
"Well, you're very welcome," she replied in that perky Anya tone he had grown to adore.  
  
She gave him that bright smile again as she lead him into the house. And as Giles locked the door behind them, he was certain the nightmares would not return for a while. 


End file.
